Guardians of the Galaxy Vol: 2 review

How does Marvel Studios and writer/director James Gunn follow up their idiosyncratic space-opera send up, “Guardians of the Galaxy?” Despite its undeniable success, the pressure to live up the ever-growing reputation of their 2014 blockbuster had be daunting, considering the specific tone and aesthetic approach these creators allowed for the project.  I am happy to say that while “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol: 2” doesn’t capture the same lightning in a bottle, I-can’t-believe-they’re-getting-away-with-this quality of its predecessor, Gunn still brings his subversive sensibilities to the table with enthusiasm.

After botching a trade deal with a race of golden, elitist aliens called The Sovereign, the Guardians hightail it to the other side of the galaxy to find safety. Peter Quill/Starlord (Chris Pratt), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) and Gamora (Zoe Saldana) find refuge on a heavenly planet manned by a glowing, bearded celestial named Ego (Kurt Russell) who’s claiming to be Peter’s father.  Separated from the group, Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and the baby tree elemental Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) are crash landed on a forest planet with Gamora’s violent sister Nebula (Karen Gillan), hiding from Peter’s old clan of space pirates led by the vengeful Yandu (Michael Rooker).  Making things all the more complicated, the pirates are staging a mutiny, believing that Yandu himself has been too soft on Peter’s betrayal.

Gunn’s love for the character’s is evident throughout the plot, which, unlike a lot of Marvel’s on-screen adaptations, is rooted in pathos. Every scene and set-piece advances a character’s role in the story and has a overall goal towards supporting the theme of outsiders looking to form new families. While there are plenty of expensive special effects to gawk at and many visual gags and quips in the dialog to laugh at, the whole thing is held together by Gunn’s strength in character-driven, emotional storytelling. That said, the special effects are at times overwhelmingly glossy, sometimes losing a true sense of tactility, and the humor occasionally slips into try-hard territory.

While the previous film found it’s humor in the on-screen interactions and the outlandish circumstances of the plot, along with moments of sarcastic dialogue, this script feels a more punched-up with a joke-per-page quota that has to be met. This expectation for comedy leaves some quips and gags falling flat while other jokes and setups feel more naturally integrated. Overall, the storytelling and the conviction of the actors in their roles supports even the film’s weaker attempts at humor.

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol:2” can’t surprise us like it did the first time around and one can find faults in its minutia but the takeaway is still the same—this is a fun group of weirdos to follow and even if you don’t know where things are going in the plot, you’re always invested in their colorful antics. Gunn’s themes about fatherhood and legacy ring true, even as they are heavily dressed in neon, arcade-game production design and delivered through jokey dialogue. Marvel fans and movie fans alike should treasure this weird little niche that Gunn and his cohorts have carved out for themselves.

Grade: B+

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/May-2017

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Magnificent Seven (2016) review

Antione Fuqua’s reworking of the classic 1960 western “The Magnificent Seven” neither challenges or ruins the original’s winning formula. Of course by original we have to speak in general terms, as the initial version of this story was first told as Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 Japanese action film “Seven Samurai,” and that epic's plot, about a rag-tag group of rogue mercenaries who help a small village/town of farmers defend their property from a murderous group of thieves, has been an oft-utilized source of cinematic inspiration over the following decades. The first American version spawned a few sequels of its own, was remade as a TV mini-series in 1998 and Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life” even took a stab at the same story structure.

 Denzel Washington plays the grizzled hit-man Chisolm. On his way through the west to find a bounty he's hired by a grief-stricken young girl named Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) after she watched her brother get shot down by an evil thief named Bartholomew Brogue and his group of well-armed cronies. Knowing how outnumbered and outgunned they will be, Chisolm collects the best gun-men and criminals he knows to help the town prepare for an all-out war. This group includes Chris Pratt as the mouthy trickster Josh Faraday, Ethan Hawke the ex-confederate sniper Goodnight Robicheaux, South Korean superstar Byung-hun Lee as Robicheaux’s knife-wielding bodyguard Billy Rocks, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as the wanted-man Vasquez, Martin Sensmeier as the deadly Native American warrior Red Harvest and Vincent D’Onofrio as the jittery, mountain man spiritualist Jack Horne.

The movie does a good job at distinguishing all of these different characters and allowing for enough breath and space between the shoot-outs to get to know the ensemble and understand their contrasting dynamics as a team. Denzel is commanding as their sturdy leader and helps to support the more idiosyncratic players in the cast. While Pratt, Hawke and Washington get the most to chew on the others do well with their limited screen time, even if much of the cast barely develops past their archetypes, but with such an archetypal story, these broad choices function well within the limitations of the mechanics of the plot.

Given Fuqua’s history in action filmmaking and urban-based crime thrillers such as “Training Day,” “Bait” and “Equalizer,” less racial stereotypes than the 1960 version and brings more diversity to the cast, commenting ever so slightly on America’s moral growing pains after the civil-war. But the picture exists primarily as a piece of consequence-free, pop-western entertainment that’s generally more interested in being cool than clever.  Here Fuqua evokes not only the original “Magnificent Seven” but also the blunt ultra-violence of Sam Peckinpah’s the “The Wild Bunch,” occasional flashes of Sergio Leone’s expressive Spaghetti Western style, and the post-modern irony of Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained.”

As a pastiche the end result is successful as visceral film experience but a bit empty as a comment on the genre or the movie’s it pays homage to. Luckily that Kurosawa structure is rock solid and can support just about any interpretation, so long as the cast is interesting and the director is capable. In the case of this iteration of “The Magnificent Seven” both of those boxes have been checked the job has been fulfilled adequately even if it doesn’t go above or beyond the parameters of the assignment.

Grade: B-

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Oct-2016

Jurassic World review

Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” is a monument in populist filmmaking, executed by a guy who’s made a few of those in his career. Released in 1993, it was one of the first landmarks of computer animation and one of the last in robotic puppetry, and on both accounts it still looks more convincing than almost anything before or after it's release. It might not be the most thematically heavy or ‘important’ movie that Spielberg ever made—it’s easy to forget that “Schindler’s List” came out the same year, winning best picture—but it may very well be the most satisfying and tightly constructed effects movie within his catalog.

The damn thing came out 22 years ago and it still holds up! In fact, it’s so good that no amount of mediocre or unnecessary sequels has seemed to damage its reputation, which is a relief since “Jurassic World” is the worst and certainly most expensive offender.

While “Jurassic Park” was adapted from a slab of airport fiction by writer Michael Crichton, “Jurassic World” just seems to be an adaption of “Jurassic Park.” In the first film Sam Neil was forced to deal with his fear of raising children by having to save the lives of the park owner’s grandchildren. Here, Bryce Dallas Howard plays Claire, an aloof, child-phobic careerist, working for a now rebooted and revamped park that’s totally open to the public. She’s then forced to deal with her priorities when one of the genetically-enhanced super-dinos escapes from its enclosure with her neglected nephews (Nick Robertson, Ty Simpkin) lost in the park. Chris Pratt plays Owen, a big-hearted, hard-headed Velociraptor trainer who volunteers to help Claire find the kids before they’re turned into lunch. Pratt’s doing his best to choke down some exceedingly bad dialogue, with his tongue firmly pressed against his cheek, but it’s hard to ignore that his paper-thin character is essentially a combination of Jeff Goldblum’s flirty, rock-star scientist character Ian Malcolm and the somewhat underwritten Australian raptor specialist from the first film.

These similarities and call-backs are played all throughout the movie in way that feels less like loving homage and more like a shrewdly devised appeal to nostalgia, and it's a serious problem when a movie spends more time on fan service than it does telling its own story. Jake Johnson playing  a handsome but useless nerd wearing the old logo on his T-Shirt in the park’s control room is a reasonable wink, but the complete restaging of the first's film's rainy Jeep scene, with the new kids now attacked in a Plexiglas, motorized ball, comes off as desperate and irritating. these echos go on and on. Instead of slowing down the plot to inspect a sick triceratops we now have an injured (fake looking) longneck of some sort; Vincent D'onofrio plays the new greedy industrialist who’s looking to exploit the dinosaurs, and we’re even given another chaos-theory speech.

Making matters worse, the film is constantly alluding to its own themes by employing the most on-the-nose references, where characters actually ask out-loud why kids these days can’t be entertained by regular, cataloged dinosaurs. Part of the plot deals with corporations that engineer their own breeds of designer dinosaurs so that they can own a piece of park though sponsorship, and the film has the gall to portray this as soulless cynicism while bombarding us with vulgar product placement--never mind the fact that the movie itself was made by a studio owned by a massive media corporation (NBC/Universal).

It could be argued that the film’s subtext was supposed to be read as cleverly-coded commentary on the studio system by an indie filmmaker (“Safety Not Guaranteed” director Colin Trevorrow),  giving the middle finger to the ‘man’ from within, if it weren’t so bloody obvious, hypocritical and trite in it's execution.

The best moments of “Jurassic World” are the ones that require no attachment to the characters--as they barely exist—and instead lean on the campy joy of mid-level monster animation. When pterodactyls are released from their aviary and start to swarm on crowds of tourists, the movie almost resembles the no-plot-no-consequence joy of Syfy Channel mock-busters like “Birdemic” and “Sharknado.” At its worst, it’s lazily written, blandly acted, tonally confused, and achingly mercenary.

Grade - D+

Originally Published in the idaho State Journal/May-2015

Guardians of the Galaxy review

                  Marvel studios (ever heard of them?) gambled the entire summer on “Guardians of the Galaxy,” a movie based on one of their C-list comic book titles. Not only is this property obscure by fanboy standards, but the film’s two biggest stars, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, are used only to voice a CGI raccoon and a talking tree, while the physically present lead characters are cast from sit-coms and televised wrestling. But it’s the against-all-odds weirdness of this concoction and the risk the studio was willing take on it that kind of gives the entire movie its anarchistic charge and underdog illusion. I say illusion of course because what the success of Guardians really proves is the apparent indestructibility of Marvel’s box-office brand and the strength of their classic studio approach.

                What writer/director James Gunn understands about this material is that the plot can be as simple and as unambitious as it is here, so long as we are on board with the characters and their journey.  Having come from the world of cult-horror and exploitation cinema, such as “Tromeo and Juliet” and “Slither,” as well as low-budget superhero parodies such as “Super” and “The Specials,” he knows exactly where to pitch the difficult tone of this idiosyncratic genre-meld.  As a fan, Gunn celebrates all of the movie’s disparate components—space-opera, buddy-comedy, superhero blockbuster—and weaves them together seamlessly, keeping everything anchored by his love for the characters and the individual comedic textures brought by the movie’s diverse cast.

                Chris Pratt plays Peter Quill/Starlord, a human abducted from earth at the age of nine and raised in space by a group of criminals. While attempting to steal a magic crystal to sell on the intergalactic black market he inadvertently gets thrown into the middle of a political war between the space military and an evil zealot named Ronan (Lee Pace), working for a purple giant called Thanos. Defiant daughter of Thanos, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a vengeance-seeking warrior named Drax (Dave Batista) and the aforementioned tree Groot (Deisel) and his partner Rocket Raccoon (Cooper) also come along on the adventure to capture the powerful stone, with the hopes to find closure, make some money, and maybe save the galaxy from the god-like tyrant. 

                 Though ripped and 60 pounds lighter, “Parks and Recreation” actor Chris Pratt uses his familiar loveable bone-head shtick and applies it to a type of Han Solo charisma, with very appealing results. Likewise, Batista juxtaposes his stone-faced wrestler physicality with the script’s brilliant dry humor and the kids will no doubt respond to Cooper’s loud-mouth Rocket Raccoon and his amorphous bodyguard Groot who is only able to say the words “I AM GROOT,” while Rocket translates his limited language to the rest of the misfits.  Every actor has a scene or two to steal and the movie breaths enough between the set-pieces to build on their relationships. Unfortunately, Zoe Saldana as the green-painted, super-assassin Gamora doesn’t get  as much of a chance to fool-around as the other boys, and having seen her in space more than we haven’t her inclusion feels considerably less inspired. But by no means does this slow the momentum of this wildly imaginative comedy. 

       The plot of “Guardians of the Galaxy” is elementary, the climax is too big and overly drawn-out for its own good, losing some focus in its overreaching for epic-ness, but the majority of this multi-million dollar oddity is overwhelmingly entertaining; the take away being the ensemble, their interactions and the humor that comes from their uncanny chemistry. Like any competent summer movie, the special effects do their job and most of the action is character-driven, but it’s the movie’s ‘70s soft-rock soundtrack and brightly colored look that perfectly mirrors the enthusiastic energy exhibited by the wickedly talented James Gunn and his weirdo cast.

Grade: B+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Aug-2014